Page 9 of Lady Gambit
She nodded and edged towards the door. “It won’t be much.”
“Any insignificant detail might help.”
Her smile carried the warmth of a summer’s day. Yet he suspected storm clouds gathered beneath the surface. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr Flynn. If only all men were so approachable.”
With that unexpected compliment, she left him standing alone in the yard, minus his handkerchief and the steely armour he’d worn since being locked in a chest at school barely able to breathe.
Dorian made his way to Bethlem Royal Hospital in St George’s Fields, south of the Thames. It wasn’t difficult to gain admission, not as a visitor or a patient. Half the people housed in cells or taking air in the ornate gardens were a burden to their families,not insane. People often said the only lunatics in Bethlem were the staff.
That was Dorian’s current opinion of the Superintendent, Mr Powell. The thin, long-legged fellow had a menacing look in his eyes. One could imagine him slipping through the shadows at night to cause mayhem. A real monster. Not a figment of the patients’ nightmares.
“What do you want with Nora Adkins?” Powell drummed his bony fingers on the desk and glanced at the mantel clock.
Dorian kept his temper. “It relates to a missing person’s case. One I’ve been asked to investigate.” He handed Powell the letter given to him by the magistrate at Bow Street. It was from a previous case but wasn’t dated. “Sir Malcolm Langley grants me permission to question anyone I deem relevant to my enquiries.”
He watched Powell squirm as he read the missive. The glow of satisfaction was akin to what he’d felt upon pummelling his tormentors at boarding school.
Powell mumbled his displeasure. “You’ll get no sense from her. The woman is as mad as a March hare. She’s been a patient at the hospital for over sixteen years. She yanks out her hair and nibbles her nails until they bleed.”
Sixteen years?
The length of time Miss Chance had lived with her brothers.
Was it a coincidence?
Dorian shrugged. “Then I suspect the interview will be brief.”
Like a petulant child, Powell threw the letter across the table. “I’ll have Peters show you to her cell. For your own safety, I must insist you speak to her from the corridor. She’s liable to scratch out your eyes and carve her name into your soul.”
Dorian gave a humourless snort. The patients needed the man’s compassion, not his contempt. “I’ll need to see the physician’s report.” He didn’t need to see the report butwished to unsettle Powell. “What is the nature of Miss Adkins’ condition?”
“She’s tuppence short of a shilling, that’s what.”
“Who had her committed?”
Powell retrieved a silver flask and two glasses from the desk drawer. He was stalling. “We lost the paperwork when we moved from Moorfields to the new premises,” he said, handing Dorian a tot of brandy.
How convenient.
“Is Miss Adkins a pauper, or is someone paying for her keep?” He knocked back the liquor and met Powell’s gaze. “No doubt the Board of Governors demand you examine the accounts regularly. The Select Committee on Lunacy assesses the welfare of all paupers. There must be recent records.”
A muscle in Powell’s cheek pulsed. “I can’t answer that without trawling through the files. Such things take time.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“Now listen here.” Powell snatched the empty brandy glasses and shoved them back in the drawer. “That woman is a raving loon. The only thing between her ears is wool. Trust me. You’ll leave here with nothing but a barrowful of nonsense.”
Dorian stood, keen to interview Nora Adkins before Powell threw him out. “My visit is a mere formality. A means of leaving no stone unturned. I’ll ask her a few questions and be on my way. I’ll wait outside for Peters.”
Itching to get rid of him, Powell sent for the guard.
Peters arrived and barely spoke as he led Dorian along the women’s gallery. Vile bodily smells clung to the air. Cries and groans and angry protests filled the silence. Rattling chains and high-pitched rants explained why Bedlam—the nickname for Bethlem Hospital—was now a word meaning chaos.
Amid the crazed cacophony, Peters clutched his ring of keys like a weapon. The tubby man was a gaoler tasked with keeping the unruly patients chained to their rickety beds.
Peters stopped at the end of the corridor and banged on a locked door. There was no reply, not a grunt or groan from within.
Dorian stepped closer and peered through the bars in the small window. An elderly woman lay on a crude metal bed, her eyes wide open, her shackled hands covering her heart. She was so frail and thin her grey dress was lost amid the coarse grey blanket.
